High Intensity Training (HITs)

Just came back from the gym with a VERY awesome new little workout skill, HIT.

Started by Arthur Jones, the BRILLIANT AND RIGHT-ON hits training totally works by doing fast maximal workouts – highest performativity – and spending short highly focused workouts in the gym, instead of hours on end (it goes away from the shwarzennegar style of training!).

Jones is listed as one of Forbes' 400 richest people.

The coolest thing – and most distinguishing feature – of HIT is the LONG cadence, incredibly slow cadence. It can take 8-30 seconds for one repitition (normally a repitition with regular weight training is about 1 second at most!). So it isolates the muscle and really works things out!
I don't buy into the controversy of HIT causing bad form because you focus on such slow cadencies of each single rep that your form goes MUCH more smoothly, much better, really than normal lifting!

HIT stresses intensity over repitition. I've done tons of routines and regimented repititions, so my body has been craving the intensity. It fits perfectly in with my physiological needs.

Hinduism: Siva, Kali, and Tantra

After sparking up an older email connection with a college religion professor, I recently found some facts about Hinduism fascinating. Siva, for example, according the the mythology, Siva rides around on this Bull, Nandi, wherever he goes. Siva also carries this trisula (trident) weapon; functions as the Destroyer lord (or the whole shebang Destroyer, Creator, and Sustainer god to some Saivites) and the Lord of Dance. Parvati and Siva gave birth to the God of good fortune, Ganesha, who has the elephant head. Parvati, the wife of Siva, originally had dark skin, but Siva teased her, calling her "blackie", so Parvati shed her darker skin (and that skin, according to some myths, became Kali) and became white-skinned. Siva, by far, sounds like the coolest Hindu god.

Kali, the so-called mother-goddess (who has nothing of a motherly image) gets depicted with her tongue hanging out, wielding a sword in one of her four arms, body stained in blood, and standing on her husband, Shiva. She also frequently gets depicted naked with wild disheveled hair. The story goes that in a battle with an evil force her killing spree got so intense that she began slaughtering everything in sight so Shiva laid down in front of her to stop her slaughter upon which she stuck out her tongue. Although I find and can relate to Siva, more than Kali, Kali has an interesting aspect: she simultaneously birth-and-death, "the womb and tomb". Very interesting dichotomy. Kali plays a huge role in Tantrism, representing the creative tension of Shiva and Shakti (male and female) energies. But, in short, if you think a 4-armed, bloody, naked, tongue-wagging, disembodied head-carrying goddess looks "motherly"? Haha, get help, fast!

Tantra
Tantric practices look at sex not as recreation, but as transformation. The goal of tantric sex does not revolve around orgasm, although it includes that, but rather of connecting more fully with your partner to create the harmonious merging of the Siva (male) and Sakti (female) energies. Tantric ideology originated as a rebellion from organized religions that rejected sexuality; tantra believes sexual energies operate as a form of enlightenment and the etymological roots even sound cool: "to manifest, to expand, to show and to weave." In short, tantra teaches to prolong the love-making and to harness the potent sexual energies for health.

The most intreresting aspect of tantra originates from its infinite nature. Western love-making has a definite, finite beginning and end, usually lasting about 15-20 minutes of actual intercourse, but tantric intercourse resembles more of an infinite dance that weaves in meditation and fulfilment to the process. So much for single orgasms, too. Tantric sex believes in multiple "releases", but on the other hand, it does not have such a definite goal and "going all the way" often doesn't have any necessary place at times. Tantra spirituality moves beyond Freudian sublimation of "labido" and into the emergence of fusing your energies for expansive, yes, but also more stable and enduring health.

There exists a lot of fear, trepidation, and uncertainty in Western sex. The most inviting aspect of tantric sex has got to be the removal of images, expectations, and facades during sexual interaction. It's entire goal revolves around simultaneous breathing eye contact, and getting "to know" your partner more harmoniously, such a connection, then, increases your own bodily knowledge and spiritual awareness, as well.

Finally, Tantra doesn't fall into the category of some obscure ritual only practiced by overzealous hindus. A lot of well-known people, Sting for example, practice tantra.

The References of the "Picard Song"

This blog - -devoted to linux and all things geekiness -- wouldn't do very well without a Star Trek post. So this is the mother of all star trek posts!

It's the episode origins of every line (all 10 of them) from the "Picard Song"! Yeah! I also, have seen all the 8 distinct episodes mentioned in the song! Uber-geekiness.

1. "Make it so”=About every episode
2. "Engage”=About every episode
3. “Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet.”=3.18Allegiance
4. "Darmok and Jelad at Tenagra”=5.02Darmok
5. "The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth! Scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based. And if you can’t find it within yourself to stand up ‘n’ tell the truth…You don’t deserve. To wear. That. Uniform.”=5.19TheFirstDury (wesley crash)
6. “Sorry, that became a speech. You're the captain, sir. You're entitled. I am not entitled to bore you with what you already know. Carry on!”=1.04Codeofhonor
7. "Hey just talking in one incredibly long unbroken sentence. It was really quite hypnotic.”=6.25Timescape
8. "You’ll have to call again! I’m just leaving. I’m uh… not dressed properly.”=1.12Biggoodbye
9. "My love is a fever, longing ‘till for that which Longer nurs the disease. Tell me more! In faith! I do not love thee! With mine eyesThey in thee A thousand errors see! But ‘tis my heart That loves, what they despise Who, in despite of view, are pleased! To dote, Shall I compare thee, to a summer’s day?!”=3.24Menageatroi_multipleshakespearean references; stewart was once a member of the royal shakespeare co.!
10. "I am locutus of Borg, I am borg...”=3.26Bestofbothworlds1

The Ultimate Star Trek Nerd Post

Star Trek, Astronomical, Cosmological, Planetary Physics terms you have got to know.

1. Parsec Contraction of “parallax second”; Distance – “parallax – apparent motion -- of one arc second”; astronomical unit of length where the earth’s orbit extends an angle of one arcsecond; 19 trillion miles, 3.26 ly
2. Pulsar - A neutron star that puts out pulses of radio energy. A pulsar is a neutron star that is emitting a beam of radio waves, and spinning, and so the effect is like that of a lighthouse. Pulsars keep exceptionally good time. Most of them ‘pulse’ at a rate between ten times a second and once every three seconds; some spin around hundreds of times a second.
3. FUA
4. The Vicinity of Our Universe

EDRT Advice

20th Century, Irish Playwright, Brendan Francis, said it perfectly:

"People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly."

"The advice you deliver to others, frequently gets rerouted to end up on your front porch" (we can call that phenomenon, "externally-directed, but reflectively-targeted advice (or EDRT advice) because it is advice that we externally direct to help an external person, but that advice frequently reflects back to targeting us...okay, this stuff is definitely going in my next book;). So....a perfect-- and life-changingly potent -- example of my EDRT advice (or ERDTA) happened in the summer of 2000 in this life-changing, motivational Teenfreedom class. The facilitator of the class said a lot of wild zany things -- talking about "being exactly like your parents, or exactly the opposite of them", being on the "right side of the tracks", something about tom cruise and tattoos, etc. I didn't say much the entire class, but when I did speak, I delivered the advice (the EDRTA) of "You should empty your cup...totally". I told the group leader to "empty his cup" -- Zen Buddhism for clear your mind, flush out your habits to find some inner peace and clarity so you can then fill your existence with "quality things". Guess who "emptied his cup"? Moi. Of course. The EDRT advice kicks back at you! A month later I threw out my bed, my box spring, many of my books, much of the furniture in my room, and began intense art therapy painting of furniture. For the next two years, I wrote prolific poetry and years after that I wrote 2-3 ebooks. I -- ME -- received the advice to empty my cup!!

Okay, I really like that. That makes a lot of sense. So a person sharing their advice is a form of "self-therapy" for them (I subconsciously "knew" that, but never fully acknowledged the intrinsic veracity of other people's advice really being -- almost ALWAYS -- advice they give to themselves). In many ways, you can effectively help others -- that whole "help me, help you" jerry McGuire thing -- help themselves by letting them speak and have a voice to their own advice. Letting them have "their say" -- even if it is advice directed toward you -- helps them discover what they need. The advice they give "you" is really almost through some psychological "rerouting" targeting "them" most effectively! (If that's the case, I'm giving myself a lot of advice!

So the existence of EDRTA is not only present, but incredibly real and effective. My -- provocative -- question, then, is this, if offering advice to another, (through the EDRT effect) ends up helping you, giving you advice (that's fact, now, not myth) then to actually help another would you give yourself advice?

What examples do you all have of EDRTA playing out in your life?

Tick, Tock of your Life Clock

See, society operates under the illusion that chaos will result if people don't follow a robotic pattern of 9-5 work to pay the bills, and have your life controlled by the illusion of material wealth and money. Ironically, what ensues from having 9-5 societal booby-traps is precisely what those myths aim to dissolve: chaos. The natural cosmos of trusting your conscience, your intuition, your inner voice perpetuates genuineness in your life with incredible efficacy.
Don't just “take break from your work”. Take off from your work! This does not mean doing "bad" things, but not the “societally prescribed” things. The ticking clock keeps you waiting in line and your life ticks away at every second.
Do you believe in what you see and feel? Or do you believe in what every mass says what you should feel? If you've innocently lived unconcious lies your entire life, what would it feel like to live a truth? Would such actions feel like a lie? Time to live the authentic lie, then...
It takes a gusto of herioc faith to listen your heart and do what feels right. Luxurious, lavish beds, ornate, intricate woodwork, opulent foofy extravagant sofas. I laugh at such improprieties lacking choice. 'Would you like spiral etchings or swirly stripes on your prison bars?' sounds like the more apt question. The essence of quality not just "hovers near", but flows from Nature and joyful, warm, colorful, clever people who have exonerated themselves from the fear of betraying, permanently, the loops and pitfalls of society's assembly lines.

Denouncing the Villification Bible

The entire DSM operates as just the most foul piece of “sophisticated – highly sophisticated” rubbish out there. The DSM reads as book of sophisticated insults. Its design offers nothing more than a manual of villifications. It's the bible for rebuking, belittling, and admonishing. The DSM reads ranks highly in the "absolutely foul pieces of Medical literature".

Everyone and every aspect of your life can be "diagnosed" with a disorder in that book. If you eat to fast, or too slow, if you breath too heavily or softly, if you talk to much or too little -- everything it labels as a disorder.

Kierkegaard -- "When you label me, you negate me," making the Diagnostic Statistic Manual the Tome of Negation!

There exist a lot of bogus, sham, completely outrageous texts of literature, manuals, and guides, but their goal, at worst, simply is negligible distraction. I've read tons of computer manuals on obscure unused programs that just provide fairly “unusable” data. The intent, however, with the computer manuals is to instruct and those manuals, ultimately – while often “useless” -- are truly harmless. One cannot speak innocuously of the DSM. The DSM scientifically attacks and points out flaws in common behaviors and finger-points and does thousands of calculated belittlements and outright castigations utilizing a derisive tone. Only haughty, sophisticated, and ultimately fearful people use the DSM for its only purpose – a weapon to inflict psychological belittlement onto others, onto “victims”.

Don't live as a victim. Instead of buying into the inauspicious and fallacious power of the DSM, listen to your own inherent wisdom. Your voice has such majesty and profound depth that inspires the most potent faith. Trust in yourself, your inherent wisdom, and in the precision of your potent body.

Take Avoidant Personality Disorder. According to DSM if you dislike receiving criticisms in public or you are "unwilling to get involved with people unless you are like" you have Avoidant Personality Disorder. Ummm....I'm speechless. What, may I ask, would are characteristics of NOT having Avoidant Personality Disorder? Enjoying criticism and befriend people when you're not liked??? I'll take Avoidant, please! Do you believe in what you see and hear? This is just one of the manner so-called "disorders" fabricated by a handful of haughty psychiatrists preaching ill-omened infamy crafted these UTTERLY ridiculous catalogue of sophisticated insults that could -- from Gandhi to the pope, the court judge to the pre-school teacher -- snare ANYONE and EVERYONE into having a disorder if you miss the guise and believe the psychiatric lies.

Linux Beginning Notes Compilation

In learning more about the linux kernal, platform, and OS, I had countless “key clarification” that, frankly, turned on the “light bulb” and really helped me understand what the hell is going on the linux world. This includes some of those essentials and a few not-so-essential-but-very-cool findings, as well.

Linux Installing File Formats (most to least complicated to install)

1. Source code (needs compiling and file placement, no wizard)
2. Binary (needs file placement, no wizard)
3. Package (. deb, .rpm automatically installs pre-compiled files into necessary folders, no wizard)
4. SE binary (automatically installs pre-compiled files into necessary folders, wizard)

Software Installation Dependency

Windows and macs provide huge clunky install files that already have all the system software code already installed in it. Linux files don't come with dependcy files, so to uninstall or install a program, you may need to respectively install or install dependency files. Yo u experiene dependency hell, when a package needs dependency files, which, themselves, need depency files!

Mounting Files -- Basics

Linux is so cool because you can add any harddrive and make it “normal architecture” that automatically mounts by adding to the /etc/fstab file, creating a directory for it under /media/ folder. Note: remarkable how like this is with Big Brother updates. Everything must be updated and cross-referenced if a “BB surplus reference was changed for example”. To add a constant external drive you have to change /etc/fstab, /media/ references to it! Then it shows up in Places.

Also, realized that me criticizing with evidence why some advice is wrong is very similar to showing command line errors in terminal! It's not insulting; quite informative and helpful! A person who looks at it as insults shouldn't really be using it!

Linux OS

Linux just refers to the kernel; the sensitive part of the OS that does everything. GNU provides the shell, the libraries, and the components that all a user to use the linux kernel. The shell prevents bad commands from destroying the kernel, so the shell is a necessary buffer. GNOME is a GUI shell, but typically the terminal is what is referred to as “shell”. GNU/Linux then is the whole OS – shell, libraries, AND kernel.

Shell Commands

Whenever you type a command in the shell, it is really running just a small little program (ls, cd, totem – all programs). The terminal knows where to find these programs by looking in specific folders. echo $PATH lists these folders. For me, they're /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games , seperated by a colon. If the program is found in one of those folders just typing the command will launch it, otherwise you'll have to type the direct location of the command (or add it's folder to the PATH) or if the program is in the current folder, just precede it with “./” (./ means execute it right here). So way's to run programs:

l ./ -- if program is in current folder

l “program name” if program is in PATH variable

l “location/of/program” -- exact location of program name.

Extensibility Flexibility

Linux epitomizes life because you can change and do ANYTHING to the OS – if you want a folder to pop out a certain way, a menu to be added to a menu, anything, you can change it in linux!

System Variables

These tell, among other things, where commands are located for them to be executed from the command-line prompt. You can see the code for system variables with the “set” command.

Aliases

AWESOME trick. To permanently create an alias (another shortcut for a command or sequence of commands) just append to the end of the .bashrc file (the resource file for all bash shell work terminals) the following line

alias ='linux command'

so for example to create a shortcut for sudo apt-get install, an enormously painful experience to keep typing, just add this line of code to your .bashrc file:

alias sagi='sudo apt-get install'

Awesome! (Note: you must not have any spaces between the “=” sign (That threw me off at first). Just restart the terminal window or reboot and tot download a program just type:

sago program_name

List Command – ls

Okay ls is pretty straight-forward and basic. The fun stuff happens with options.

-h – (combined with -l) produces human-readable formats, meaning instead of byte sizes, kilobyte and megabyte sizes

-l (long format, including permissions and author and modified. tons of information

-a (all files, even invisible with “.” before the name.

Copy and Move Commands –cp mv

Okay Copy, cp is again basic. It adds a new file or directory to the new path name.

cp file1 /home/kooz/file2

if you cp the same file in the same folder to that folder, you can rename it, which duplicates the file. The only special command is to copy a directory, you need the -r option.

mv.

Move is a little more interest because it is basically renaming the absolute path of a file or directory. Unlike windows or other OS, where a file is deleted and recreated, the file stays the same, but it's absolute path changes. To rename 'myfolder' to 'thefolder' do this:

mv myfolder thefolder

To move myfolder into the folder

mv myfolder/ thefolder/

Move, unlike rm or cp, you don't need the -r flag to work with directories.

Remove – rm

The other basic task.

Unlike recycle bin, it's gone baby with rm. Salvaging deleted (rm-ed) files requires special software and is not easy; best to avoid this) Some nifty flags:

-f – delete it without y/n question verification.

-r – deletes an entire folder (and all its contents) – requried to delete a folder.

to delete all files in a directory (but keep the directory) this is a nifty trick.

rm -f * (wildcard for everything!)

WildCards and Spaces

· everything after that

? that specific characteristics

“ “ -- exactly as is, can include spaces.

\ -- escape character. so you can type spaces when that precedes the space . For example consider the file my file that you want to delete. A lot of choices when working with those funky file names, but ti's best just to name_files_like_this_with_the_underscore so you don't have to go into that crazy *?*\ !

You can delete it using the four methods above:

rm my*file or rm my* (assuming nothing else begins with my that you don't want to delete!)

rm my?file

rm “my file”

rm my\ file

Make Directory – mkdir

Very obvious and basic but one nifty “thinking ahead task”

-p – makes a new folder within a new folder

So if you're in an empty folder and type

mkdir myfolder/stuff/

you'll get an error sayin “myfolder” doesn't exist, but with:

mkdir -p myfolder/stuff/

then you'll create those two folders, “myfolder”, and “stuff”, within “myfolder”.

Links

There are two types of links, symbolic and hard. Symbolic links are created with

ln -s oldfile linktooldfile

Under ls -l it then points to the old file:

linktooldfile -> oldfile

note you have to throw in the -s (or –symbolic) option, or else it will automatically create hard links. Linux is so short and nifty with the options, instead of typing out –symbolic, just type -s!

Hard links actual change the file pointer and the only difference is that it will up the number before the owner under the file information

Mounting files

When you mount a drive, a symbolic link is created drawing from the /dev folder and the the /etc/fstab (file system table) file when the mount.

mount /media/cdrom

will look up the cdrom drlive in fstab and compare it to /dev based on a uuid number,to then mount it.

Manual Mount

Step 1: create a mount point (just a directory in /media/, although the mount point could be anywhere, it's best to stay organized and ue the /media directory) to mount the external drive to.

Step 2: check the partition type with

sudo fdisk -l /dev/hdb (warning: fdisk formats hard drives! be careful with it!)

step 3: now mount the disk (this is temporary mount and /newdisk will show up in the /mnt/ directory):

sudo mount -t nfts -o umask=0222 /dev/hdb1 /media/newdisk

Okay -t refers to type (ntfs, fat32 (vfat), ext3, etc.) then -o tells it you're doing more options, then /dev/hdb1 is the virtual device location and /media/newdisk is the mount point. After that command, the file should end up in /mnt/newdisk.

To unmount the drive, just type

umount /media/newdisk (also you could specify it's location in /dev/, but that's tricky and more complicated).

So in conclusion, mounting gets information from /etc/fstab, has a mount point in /media/, shows up after mounted in /mnt/, and accesses /dev wit uuid numbers to mount it = 4 seperate directories!

File Sizes

ls -h lists file sizes in kilobytes

ls -S lists file sizes with largest to smallest

ls -Shl shows all that information.

disk usage

du shows the directory size

du -h directory size in kilobytes.

du -sh total directory size in kilobytes.

(note du and find and the like are limited by permissions, so use sudo before it).

disk free space

df -h lists free disk space in kilobytes.

df shows ALL total mounted file systems! External, var, etc. to see your root, just look under the "mounted on" column.

The Vicinity of Our Universe

Earth (and our sun and solar system) is located on the inner arc of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way galaxy, not unlike our own Earth, revolves and rotates. For the Milky Way galaxy to complete one full rotation (pivot) -- our for our solar system to complete one full orbit -- it takes roughly 250 million years! So our solar system has completed about 23 orbits (or 0.0008 orbits since humans) so far. The Milky Way galaxy and the nearby Andromeda galaxy together form a binary system.

• 10 ly -- Neighborhood Stars -- Our nearest star (to our sun) is 7000 times further away than the edge or our solar system. Examples of some stars within 10 lightyears from our sun include, Alpha Centauri, Proxima (a red dwarf), Wolf, and Sirius Nearly 80% of universal stars are red dwarfs (smaller than our sun, 1/10 the size, and 1/100 the luminosity).

• 250 ly -- 1/3 Visible Stars -- This tiny section of the Milky Way galaxy (relative to its enormous size) marks most stars that can be seen with the naked eye. About 1/3 of the visible stars from earth fall into this 250 ly range. We can view about 1500 luminous stars in this range, and some stars near the end of this distance range are N. Vel. and C Pup.

• 5000 ly -- Orion Arm -- -- At 5000 light-years away we zoom out to our location in the Milky Way Galaxy, Orion's Arm. Compared to the large Sagitarius Arm (located near the galactic center), the Orion arm (our sun's location) looks like a fairly minor arm The bright giant and supergiant stars (1000x more luminious than our sun) composing the Orion constellation, make up the most visible stars from this distance. At 100,000x the luminosity of our sun, and 4000 ly away,many consider Rho Cassiopeia (Cas) to be the largest star in our Orion Arm vicinity.

• 50,0000 ly -- Our Entire Milky Way Galaxy -- From here, we can see all arms of our galaxy (Orion, Perseus, Cygnus, and Sagitarius, to name a few) visible as a compact disc, hosting 200 billion stars! You find our sun, buried deep within the Orion arm, 26,000 ly away from the (now visible) galactic center. You can spot the two extremes from this distance -- the super dense clustering of stars near the galactic center ("urban stars":) and then the (rural stars) located in things called galactic clusters that pepper the outlying bit of space of our Milky Way galaxy. In addition to the galactic clusters and extra dense stars (near galactic core), is the dwarf galaxy -- Sagitarius dwarf -- that slowly drifts closer to our galaxy.

• 500,000 ly -- Satellite Galaxies of Milky Way -- Our galaxy has mini galaxies orbitting around (just like Earth has satellite's that orbit around it, including the moon), which can be seen from this distance. Within this distance we can find 225 billion stars, 12 orbitting dwarf galaxies (Draco Dwarf, Sagitarius Dwarf, Ursa Minor Dwarf, for example), and 1 large galaxy.

• 5 mly -- Local Group galaxy cluster -- At 5 million light years, we can see the Local Group, the clustering of dwarf galaxies (Phoenix, Tucana, and Aquarius Dwarf, for example) other spiral disc galaxies, and larger galaxies (Andromeda, Triangulum) to which our Milky Way gravitationally binds.

• 100 mly -- Virgo SuperCluster -- From 100 million light years we can see the neighboring clusters like our Local Group, such as The Virgo, Eridanus, and Fornax Clusters (along with the Local Group cluster), that compose the huge Virgo SuperCluster. The Virgo Supercluster (from 100 mly) encompasses 200 trillion stars,50,000 dwarf galaxies, 2,500 large galaxies, and 200 galaxy groups (Local, Virgo, Fornax, etc).

• 1 bly -- Neighboring Superclusters -- From this distance we can see the neighboring superclusters (Leo, Sextans, Shapley superclusters) to the Virgo Supercluster, randomly clumped together. At 1 bly, there exist 250 quadrillion stars, 60 million dwarf galaxies, 3 million large galaxies, 240,000 galaxy groups, and 100 superclusters. The neighboring superclusters at 1 bly shows only about 7% of the entire universe.

• 14 bly -- Most of Visible Universe -- Here we can see most of the visible universe, beholding in regards to stars, dwarf galaxies, large galaxies, galaxy groups, and supercusters: 3x10^22, 7 trillion, 350 billion, 25 billion, and 10 million